Many types of products are extruded from dies and cut to certain lengths after being extruded through the die. Such products include, but are not limited to, catalyst, human and animal foods, fertilizer, medication, various types of plastic and/or other polymer products, fiber reinforced products, metal, glass, etc. For some types of products (e.g., medication, fertilizer, catalyst, etc.) the cut extruded product should be as uniform as possible. The rate at which a certain product is extruded through a particular die can at least partially depend on a variety of factors such as the wearing of the die components, the wearing of the auger, the density of the product, whether the auger is starved of feed material, plugging of one or more dies inserts, etc. As a result of one or more of these variable factors and/or other factors, the rate at which a particular product extrudes through one or more can periodically vary. This varying of the rate of product extrusion commonly results in the cut extruded product being of a non-uniform length, thereby resulting in a significant percent of the product to be disposed of.
Products formed for the medical and catalyst industry is highly sensitive to product uniformity. The uniform size of a catalyst is used to control certain types of chemical reactions. In some types of chemical reactions, a large tolerance as to size variations was acceptable for the catalyst in these chemical reactions. Due to these large acceptable tolerances as to catalyst size, the catalyst could be extruded and cut using conventional technology and about 65-85% of the cut catalyst would be acceptable for use. However, when the tolerances for the size of the catalyst are small when the catalyst is used in other types of chemical reactions, the amount of wasted cut catalyst significantly increases, thereby increasing product costs. In the medical industry, the tolerance for the size of the medical is very low so as to ensure that essentially the same dosage of medicine is present in each pill. As such, most drug manufacturers use a pill manufacturing process. Pill machines are also used to form some types of catalyst that require a low tolerance to the size of the catalyst. Although the pill manufacturing process produces a large percentage of medication and catalyst having a desired size, the pill manufacturing process is very expensive as compared with most extrusion processed, and also has extremely slow through-puts, thereby resulting in low output over time and significantly increased manufacturing costs. Such high costs are cost prohibitive for many types of products.
In view of the current state of art, there is a need for extrusion hardware and a cutting device that can be used to cut an extruded product in a more uniform manner.